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Working Our Lives Away

The daughter of a friend of mine recently left university and entered into the world of work, taking on a temporary office job. At the end of her first week at work, she phoned home in tears. ‘It’s horrible,’ she complained to her mother, ‘there’s no time to do anything else. I’m so tired when I get home in the evenings that all I can do is watch TV. And then I have to get up early the next morning and do it all again! If this is what work is like, I don’t want to spend my whole life doing it!’

We take it for granted that work must be a major part of our lives—in fact, for many people, it's the primary aspect of our lives. We define ourselves, and other people, by our job roles—‘So what do you do?’—and measure our happiness in terms of how successful we are in these roles. Forty hours a week, 48 weeks a year, for up to 50 years—not including traveling time, and the time we spend resting and recovering from the exertions of our working lives.

Is this really what we were born for? Is this really what life should be about?

Of course, if you’re lucky, you might have a job which is fulfilling, which suits your innate interests and skills, and which you find challenging and stimulating. In that case, your job may provide you with what psychologists call ‘flow’—a state of intense absorption, which makes you feel engaged and alive. Perhaps the majority of people aren’t so lucky and do jobs which are repetitive and boring. But I would argue that, even if your job does provide you with ‘flow’, work should just be an aspect of our lives, rather than its defining feature. Working 40 hours a week makes our lives become narrow and constricted, so that we lose sight of whole vistas of possibility—of activity and adventure—outside it. There’s so much to learn in life, so many different ways to develop, so many experiences to absorb, so many activities to enjoy (including doing nothing), but while we spend so much time working it’s difficult to find time and energy for these.

The History of Work

Work as we know it is a relatively modern activity. For the whole history of the human race up until a few thousand years ago, human beings lived as hunter-gatherers. Their main ‘work’ was simply to find food, and perhaps surprisingly, they didn’t have to work particularly hard to do this. Anthropologists estimate that hunter-gatherers only had to spend around four hours a day searching for food - the rest of the time was leisure time. Life only really became difficult once our ancestors started farming. Grinding food out of the soil was a lot more labour intensive than hunting, or picking fruit from trees or plants from the ground. And then came the industrial revolution, when human beings were imprisoned in factories and mills for almost all their waking hours, treated as nothing more than objects of labour, working in appalling conditions for appalling wages, and usually dying at a young age. So much for progress!

Working conditions are infinitely better now, of course, at least in more economically developed parts of the world. But I would argue that we still haven’t gone far enough in a positive direction. We’re still living with the legacy of the industrial revolution, and in thrall to a mistaken idea that work defines us and should be the primary pursuit of our lives. We’re still living as economic objects whose main value is what we can produce.

But what’s the alternative, you might ask? If we didn’t work so hard, our economies would fail, and we would all be living in poverty. But this isn’t necessarily the case. In continental Europe, working hours are significantly shorter than in the US and the UK, and productivity is actually higher. Countries like Holland and Denmark are actually more economically successful than the US or the UK. And not uncoincidentally, they also have higher levels of well-being. Working less does not mean economic failure - the opposite may be the case. It may be that longer working hours just makes people tired and resentful, and therefore less productive.

And in any case, perhaps we need to rethink our whole relationship to economics. It’s clear that the world’s population cannot keep producing and consuming material goods at the present rate, especially now that countries like China and India are becoming more economically developed. The environmental effects are simply too severe—our planet is already suffering the strain, and won’t be able to withstand much more damage. Sooner or later, we may all have to reduce our consumption of material goods (many of which are just unnecessary luxury items, after all). That in itself would necessitate less economic activity, as these goods wouldn’t need to be produced. Societies which were more egalitarian, and more sensibly controlled, might be able to cope with such a transition.

The modern emphasis on work is completely out of proportion, and harmful to our well-being. One thing is for sure: if you spend nearly all your waking hours working, then it doesn’t matter whether you’re a millionaire businessman or a financial analyst, you’re not really so different from a factory worker in a 19th century industrial town—an economic object, whose life only has value in terms the labour you produce. The only difference is that you have the freedom to change and to make your life more meaningful and fulfilling.

The idea that work = part of life is so embedded into American society that few stop to really question it. And those who do openly question it are often accused of being lazy or whining.

There's the idea that you can make it if you just work hard enough (which is far from true in reality). Everyone wants to make it, and we're so busy working away our time that we don't see what we really are, which is not so far away from being indentured servants.

Some say work is a choice, except not really. Unless you're born into wealth or inherit it there's really no choice.

I agree that we could shorten work days and work much more efficiently than we do now. I also think there needs to be a shift away from seeing work as the meaning of life. So many jobs are tedious, repetitive, and unrewarding yet people wondering what's wrong with themselves when they don't feel fulfilled. The job itself is actually the problem.
In fact, the entire work culture is the biggest problem.

I agree wholeheartedly! So now that the three of us know the truth, what's the solution? I wasn't born to wealth so I'm not going to inherit anything, but I still want to have a roof over my head, and food to eat.

Edith.....What I've come to see is there is only one way to get money in this modern society and some compensation for basic needs without working in or for the system and that is to claim hardship in the form of depression and anxiety and get on SSD..which is essentially your social security check early. This is the only option that they give you.....and in my opinion they owe it to you for imposing the money system in the first place and not letting you live off the land with free food, water and community. It won't be as much as 4 weeks pay generally speaking, although it is as much as a minimum wage job with taxes taken out and plus you get great healthcare. You also qualify for foodstamps and almost free cellphone and other programs like rent rebates and vouchers and rent and utility programs. So it is completely the way to go because if you live simple enough you end up having all the peace of mind and freedom you want without having to go into the rat-race!! The amount you get in a monthly check reflects your work history and earning over the years. You can get on it if you persist and their are plenty of lawyers that will help you fill out all the paperwork and aid you in this process. They will only take some money from you from each check the first year like 100 dollars a month or just take some back money you would be rewarded once you get on for the time it took for you to qualify. The longer it takes to get on the larger the sum of money you will be rewarded, so you end up with some bank money also out of it. Contact me for more details. Regards, Jim www.facebook.com/jimfreebird

that more people would thrive if the work week were shortened. A dirty little secret called "labor unions" helped do this for a little while, by increasing wages for working people and helping them get more time off -- does anyone remember when the five-day work week was a radical concept? Thanks to labor unions, a weekend off is now expected.

You can write all the essays you want and fume about how unfair it all is, but the only way to put work in its place is to ORGANIZE. Corporations are not going to give us more time off out of the goodness of their hearts. And banks, landlords, utilities and grocery stores are not going to lower our bills so that we can live on less. It's not easy but it will be worth it for our children and their children etc.

I think shortening the "official" sanctioned work week would be a great start. Say, making Monday an official part of the weekend. But there's other things that would need to take place for this to happen. DC and Wall Street would have to sign on to such a curtailing. Our entire economy and work culture is built around these two entities. And no, I don't want to work 4 ten-hour days. 32 hours is enough for a healthy work/life balance, IMHO.

I hate this word I'm about to type, but we need a shift in paradigm. Where as a species do we need to go? How much further "progress" is there left to achieve? Why is the next iPhone needed every damn year? How many more Starbucks do I need in my neighborhood? How many more bombs, missiles, and drones do we need to develop? Didn't the old ones kill enough alleged terrorists? How many more cubicles filled with office drones with college degrees do we need? Where are we going in this system?

I think that the current system will simply collapse in due course, and it will be dreadful when it does.

Civilisations around the world will implode when they run out of fresh water and oil.

When that happens, people will not be able to return to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle because there's nothing left to hunt or gather.

So the collapse will be enhanced by the fact that it will be impossible for most people to revert to a more primitive way of life.

Eventually, after more than 99% of people have died, the remaining pockets of humans may be able to find a balance with their local ecosystems. It's difficult to say what would happen after that. People may die out entirely, or isolated populations may evolve into new forms of primate. I don't think we will return to a state where humans are so abundant as they are now though - the natural resources needed to create civilisation as we know it will no longer exist in sufficient quantities.

It is too much to ask of people to give so much of there lives to this rat race. And for what? Food, water, shelter? Why should shelter take a lifetime to aquire? Its insanity!

Sometimes I think ill buy a small cabin up north, work part time and live a simple life. Or buy a small condo and do the same. Volunteer some of my time as well. Living the way we do doesnt make sense and no one really wants to do it. My advice is build some security and get out early!

Wealthy / royal people have capitalized off the fact that the average person lacks the insight or does not care to see what is really going on around them.

From what I have read, in America the original wealthy people had plantations and slaves to create wealth. Then the industrial revolution took slave labor to the next level. Some people were put to work as children and had concrete beds to sleep. Labor unions came into effect which basically gave slaves some rights. Look up Henry Fords buisness model. Weekends were givin to workers to have just enough time to go shopping and buy goods/services with the money they earned. In turn you and I are slaves with just enough free time to go spend money to support another sector of wealth (retail). Actions speak louder than words, if no one voted or pumped gas the economy will stop as we know it. The problem again is that most people are oblivious to there environment and rich people are very happy with the system. Why give people a better life when they are not even asking for it or demanding it.

The moral to the story in America is get rich, stay rich or drop out ...don't vote, don't pump gas and consume and work the bare minimum which will even the playing field. (won't happen) cheers